


Avoiding It

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Fluff, and I love all of you, as usual, because I hate myself, enjoy, why do I keep writing things that are longer than they need to be?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:49:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: You have been trying to tell Davey how you feel for over a year, but he never seems to get it.





	Avoiding It

1\. The Discovery

 

Despite the massive population of Manhattan, everybody knew that Jack Kelly’s crew hung out at Jacobi’s from the end of the school day to just before the dinner rush. It wasn’t every kid, every day, but all of the kids that were there were inevitably a friend of his.

You, despite having been one of those kids for years now, weren’t quite sure how you became a part of the crew. Maybe it was because Jack had come to your mother’s house in the afternoons in elementary school after his dad died. Maybe it was because you and Race were the only two to know the Thriller dance at the eighth grade dance, thus making you two partners in some elite club. Maybe it was because in Journalism class, freshman year, you made Katherine laugh by spelling out swear words with the first letter on each line in your articles. Whatever the reason, you would spend your afternoons pretending that you would finish your homework in the diner.

“What’s the buzzkill today, Y/N?” You had been scribbling rough little flowers in the corner of the worksheet, but you looked up when Elmer took your pen to twirl around his fingers.

“Pre-Calc,” you groaned. 

You both grinned when at least three of the other boys let out of a chorus of swear words and agreements.

“Three weeks of dividing functions, and I still don’t understand a thing,” Race said with wide-eyed disbelief. He slung an arm over your shoulder and threw his head against the padded back of the booth with melodramatic despair.

Junior year was your favorite so far, but also the most difficult. You and Race had been languishing in the rowboat of children who had been extraordinary when young, but then found themselves unprepared for everybody else to catch up. The children who thought they were geniuses until they saw what geniuses really looked like.

“Excuse me, pardon - Y/N!”

Speak of the devil.

You turned, maybe not too eager

(Probably too eager)

when you heard Davey call your name. He was scooching past the boys sitting around you with two milkshakes in hand. Race gave a harrumph of annoyance when Davey leaned past him to get to you.

“Oh, Davey, you didn’t have to-” You held out your hands to take one of the glasses, surprised, but he waved you off.

“The Girl-Scout Cookie Shakes are the best shakes in the diner. I won’t let you go another day without trying one just because you already spent your allowance,” he said with a sweet smile.

“And this, Davey, is why I love you,” you said without thinking. Your eyes were glued the tall glass, mouth already watering at the thought of the Thin Mints. Your mouth dried when you realized that while you meant exactly when you had said, you didn’t mean it exactly the way you had intended to say it.

Race gaped at you, smile growing, and some of the other boys hid grins and dropped jaws behind their hands or looked away as though they weren’t listening.

“It’s nothing,” Davey said with an awkward shrug.

“No,” you said earnestly. “No, Davey, this is why I love you.” Looking at his neat hair, his carefully ironed collared shirt, and his sweet smile, you knew that it was true. You loved this infuriatingly perfect boy.

“You’re welcome,” he acquiesced. He turned away with a bashful smile to talk to Jack and Katherine about an AP US History paper.

You and Race exchanged a look, his amused and yours baffled and annoyed.

You had just told Davey that you loved him twice, and he hadn’t picked up on it. Forget infuriatingly perfect, he was purely infuriating.

 

2\. The Humiliation

 

When you signed up for a Team Sports class for the beginning of your Senior year, you had been ready to beg God for death daily. It was either a gym class or a woodworking class, and an incident in middle school had ensured that you would stay ten feet away from saws at all times.

(“It’s not my fault that the wood broke when I was trying to use the miter saw, Albert! I didn’t throw my finger in the way of the blade on purpose, and if you say that no guy is gonna want to marry a girl missing the tip of her pinky finger one more time, I swear-”)

You had been shocked to see Davey in your hour, but he had dodged your questions.

“But you said that you had an independent study during this period,” you had said suspiciously.

He had waved you off, a little too flippant to be believable. “It fell through. This was the only class that fit my schedule.”

“But you just talked to the teacher last week, and-”

“It didn’t work out,” he said with finality. He had avoided your eyes until you gave in and smiled.

“Well, it’s good to know I have a partner for everything.” Not an athletic partner, but the best company that you could think of.

Now, six weeks in, it was almost your favorite hour of the day. Almost, if not for the sports and the locker room. But it was the time of day that you got to talk one on one to Davey. It was the time of day that he was less perfect, his hair mussed and skin gleaming with sweat. The only thing that could possibly have made it better would have been if the class had swim days. As terrible as changing into a swimsuit in front of all those other girls would have been, Davey Jacobs in swim trunks would have been more than worth it.

The two of you were partners for doubles tennis, and the two of you were terrible. 

Davey stuck his tongue out a little and tossed the ball into the air, swinging in a mad attempt at a serve. He hit it hard, but the ball didn’t even make it to the net. You gave a loud guffaw, but tried to stifle it when Davey shot you a dirty look.

“You aren’t any better,” he said with a dry grin.

“I don’t have to be good to see that you aren’t,” you said. You moved to get the ball, shooting a wink his way, but you froze when you felt something give. No, not a give. It was a feeling every girl came to know and dread. Your eyes widened, trying to do the math, but already knew that you had just started your period in the middle of the tennis courts. The gush wasn’t short or light, and even just shifting your legs a little closer together let you feel the blood shift.

“Y/N?” Davey’s face had sobered into concern. “Are you okay?”

“No,” you said levelly. There was no lying about this. This wasn’t a light flow that you could play off by angling yourself away from him. You shifted again, this time to mask yourself as you brushed your fingers against the back of your shorts. They were wet, and your fingers came away red. “Can you some here for a second?”

“Come on! Get the ball!” The boys across from you were getting annoyed, but you did nothing but hold your middle finger up at them.

“What’s wrong?” Davey’s face was slack and serious. Normally you would have been mortified, but the shock of it had turned your nerves to steel. Being coy or ladylike wouldn’t get anything done in this situation, so you skipped over the tact.

“Davey, I just started my period, and I am bleeding through my shorts.”

His gaze dropped down a smidge, but he looked up at the sky, cheeks reddening, before his eyes dropped low enough to see. “I, ah, I don’t-”

“Davey,” you said again. He looked at your face again, and you smiled a humorless grin. “I need to go inside, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d really appreciate it if you walked behind me so the others can’t see it.”

“Right. Right, yeah, block the view. I can do that.” He grabbed your shoulders and whirled you around, chest pressed your back.

“Uh, Davey?”

“Yeah?”

“Two things. One, we should tell the teacher before leaving.”

His hands froze on your shoulders. “Right, yeah, that’d be good.”

“Two, if you stand that close to me, I will definitely get blood on your-” His thighs and crotch. You would rub blood on his thighs and crotch.

His hands fell from you as he took a small step back. He called the teacher over, whispered the word “period”, and was immediately pushed to walk you to the locker room.

Davey made the walk harder than it needed to be, but you appreciated the enthusiasm. You were pretty sure that people could tell what the issue was by how close to you he walked, but you basked in the proximity. It was the wrong moment, you knew, but you could feel his body warmth even though you didn’t touch.

He stood outside the locker room while you changed back into your regular clothes. His gaze flickered down again when you walked back out. “Do you have-”

“Yes,” you said with a slight smile. “Believe me, I have everything I need with me, all the time. I just didn’t think I’d need it on the tennis courts.”

His head bobbed up and down, still uncomfortable, but relieved. “Good. That’s - that’s great. Stellar.”

The gym doors slammed open to let the other kids in class back inside to change. Davey moved to join the group of boys going to change, but you brushed your fingers against his arm. He looked back at you, achingly handsome with his hair dangling in front of his eyes.

“Thank you.” You smiled at him, heart soft and fingers fidgeting with the hem of your dress. “You totally saved my life today and I. Love. You.”

His mouth opened a little, alarmed, before he closed it again with a low dip of his chin. “Don’t sweat it. Anybody would have done it.”

You shrugged, heart sinking. “I wouldn’t have wanted just anybody. You handled it spectacularly. Thanks.”

When he walked to change back into his regular clothes, you sat clumsily against the bleachers. He still didn’t get it. You weren’t even at the point of being a damsel in distress. Even though being one would have been degrading, at least he probably would have kissed you afterwards.

 

3\. The Party

 

You were drunk, you were clumsy, and you had Davey Jacobs’ tongue in your mouth.

Katherine had invited a bunch of you over to her house when she found out that her dad was going to be gone for the weekend.

“The parents away, the kids will play. How clichéd, Kath,” you had teased while leaning against her locker.

Jack had laughed out loud, arm slung around her waist. “Does that mean we get to trash the house?”

She had playfully elbowed his in the stomach. “If you do, you don’t have to worry about dealing with my father. To do that, you would have to survive dealing with me.”

It hadn’t been a rager or anything; Katherine didn’t like enough people to invite the sorts that would get too crazy. It was a few of her friends, a few obligatory invites, and all of Jack’s gang. There had been alcohol and dancing. There had been scattered shouts of “what are the odds” and drunken arguments over how many times Hollaback Girl could be played before it wasn’t fun anymore.

“The answer,” you had whispered to Davey, “is that the limit does not exist.” You had been drinking, not too much, but enough that your words came a little slower. The two of you leaned against the back wall of the living room. 

His smile had been broad, a little looser than usual. He had only been sipping at his beer, but he was a lightweight. He looked distinctly ruffled, and you wanted to run your hands through his hair. “There are other good songs.”

“There are not,” you exclaimed. “Hollaback Girl is the only song of any significance, ever.”

“No way,” he said.

“It is high art, Davey.”

He had thrown back his head in a loud laugh. A few people turned to look at the two of you, most of them smiling when they turned back around. Race grinned, sticking out his tongue and waggling his eyebrows when you nodded to him.

“Want a refill?” Davey’s question caught you off guard. He wasn’t even halfway through his cup, but when his fingers brushed against yours as he grabbed for your cup, a chasm opened in your stomach.

“Sure. Mind if I come with?”

You honestly didn’t remember how it happened. You remembered walking out of the basement and into the kitchen. You remembered looking at his long eyelashes while he got more beer. You remembered him asking you if Gwen Stefani was Bach’s equal as a musician. 

Then you remembered yourself perching on the edge of the counter, hands tangled in his hair. His lips moved against yours, a little sloppy but very enthusiastic. You wrapped one leg around his waist to pull him closer to you, core’s pressed against each other. One of his hands gripped at your thigh, and you gave a low purr that you hadn’t known you were capable of.

He smiled a little at the sound, tearing his lips from yours to trail kisses along your jaw. He moved down to your neck, tongue brushing against your collarbone, and you were vaguely pleased that you had worn something low-cut.

A strangled “oof” of surprise sent the two of you pulling away from each other to look at whoever made the sound.

It was Crutchie, cheeks reddening and awkward grin growing. “Davey - Y/N - I am so sorry. I didn’t know that you two, were, well,” he trailed off.

Davey was disentangling himself. You cared less about Crutchie, who look absolutely horrified to have interrupted, than you did about the cold air that rushed in when Davey left.

“We weren’t anything, Crutchie,” Davey said frantically. He looked back at you, maybe hoping for agreement, but you were at a loss for words. You two had kissed, and it wasn’t anything to him.

“I just-” Crutchie looked so bewildered, the poor thing. He had locked eyes with you, rightfully knowing that what happened meant everything to you. “I just wanted a drink.”

Davey looked between the two of you, ears scarlet, before stammering, “I’ve gotta go.” He staggered away, leaving you and Crutchie in the empty kitchen. 

You slid down from the countertop miserably. Opening the fridge, you grabbed two beers and tossed one to Crutchie. He caught it deftly, not needing to think as he did so. He had killer reflexes, but that hardly mattered at the moment. You opened your can and chugged it all, eyes shut as you drank. You didn’t like beer, not really, but you thought that you needed one.

“Don’t sweat it, bud,” you said forlornly. “We aren’t anything.”

Davey didn’t say anything in the group chat all weekend. Everybody else was sending pictures and stories from the party, laughing at stupid things people did while drunk. You and Crutchie meekly said that nothing had happened, that it had been a great time, and Davey said nothing at all.

On Monday, you expected him to say nothing to you at all. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t called. He hardly ever did either of those things, but the radio silence just enforced what you already suspected. He had meant it when he said that the two of you weren’t anything, and he regretted the kiss. 

You expected him to sit a polite distance away during lunch, conveniently in a conversation with somebody, anybody else, as long as it meant that he didn’t have to talk to you. You didn’t have any classes together this term, so he could get away with pushing you away with little lying necessary.

"We just grew apart," you rehearsed to yourself as you walked into the school on Monday morning. If you were going to have to cover for the awkwardness, you would need something ready. "We’re still friends and everything, but I guess we aren’t meant to be any closer than that. Just friends, friends that talk because we have people in common who-"

A hand wrapped around your elbow and you stiffened. You liked to get to school early, before anybody else, just so you could get ready without interruption. Nobody who would grab your arm came as early as you. You turned your head, just a little, and saw that it was Davey holding onto you. He looked pale and urgent as you gaped at him.

“Y/N, I am so sorry.”

“Davey,” you said distantly. “What are you doing here? You take Les to school in the morning.”

He waved it off impatiently. “I took him early. I wanted to talk to you before the boys came, and it had to be in person. I am so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” you asked. You’d accept whatever he said, but you needed to know what he was bothered by.

“I kissed you at the party,” he said, aghast. “You were drunk, I was drunk, and I kissed you. I didn’t even ask, and you aren’t supposed to take advantage of people when they’re drunk-”

You grinned, but tried to stifle it when he met your eyes again. “Davey, you didn’t take advantage of me.”

“I did. I took advantage of you, and now it’s going to ruin everything between us,” he said mournfully.

“No,” you said resolutely. He looked up at you again, hands wringing, and you didn’t let him look away. You locked eyes. “You didn’t ruin anything. We kissed, and I still love you. You ran off, and I still love you. Everything is fine.”

He took a deep breath. “Everything is fine,” he echoed. 

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders. He hugged you back, grateful, and you tried not to feel bitter about any of it. You loved him, romantically of course, but also platonically. He hadn’t ruined anything, and now you had to do the same. If he wasn’t hearing you when you told him you loved him, it had to be because he was forcibly not hearing you. If you tried to force him, it might ruin more than a kiss could.

 

4\. The End

 

You adjusted your graduation cap in the mirror. The caps really just looked terrible on everybody. How do people in movies make them look good?

"Commencement, after party, then home," you told yourself. It would be a long day, but then it would be summer. It was the first year that you weren’t totally stoked for the vacation. You just felt like things couldn’t be done yet. Things hadn’t been settled. It wasn’t a picture perfect movie ending. You were graduating, you’d have the summer with everybody, and then what? College, sure, but what would happen? Everybody said that people hardly ever stayed in touch with people from high school, but you didn’t want to lose everybody.

You were standing in lines, walking side by side into the gymnasium to receive diplomas. You were walking by Romeo, who grabbed your hand and squeezed it before the two of you split. For once, it didn’t feel like a come-on. It felt like nerves and nostalgia; excitement and uncertainty. You squeezed back and kept your eyes forward. You didn’t want to lose any of the gang. You hated high school, but you loved them.

You loved them when while you tossed the caps into the air and your friends scrambled to grab each others’ before anybody could grab their own. You held Smalls’ cap with pride as you hurried out of the room.

You loved them while you took pictures on the school lawn. You had one arm around Race and one around Specs, both of whom had an arm around your waist.

You loved them when your mom pulled you and Davey aside to take a picture. Your grandmother smiled at the two of you, standing a respectable distance apart, and shook her head.

“I thought the two of you would date,” she said regretfully. “You would have made such a handsome couple.”

Davey gave a false sounding laugh. “Yeah, no, Y/N has never wanted to date me.”

You gaped at him. “Are you an idiot?”

His eyebrows rocketed into his hairline and his mouth opened and closed, wordless.

Your grandmother was looking at the two of you, a little uncomfortable. Your mother put an arm on her shoulder, moving to take her away to give the two of you a moment. 

“Come on, Mom,” she said lightly. “Let’s give the kids a second.”

As the older woman was hobbling away, you heard her asking your mom if that was right. “Did I say something wrong? I’ve never heard Y/N talk to him like that.”

“You are the most oblivious, forcibly ignorant person I have ever known.” Your voice was high, a little shaky, but he just looked lost.

“What are you talking about?” His hands were bunched around the graduation cap. His had Finch’s name printed in small, even letters.

Race came up behind you and clapped a hand on your shoulder, but you could hear Katherine’s whispered command to back away. You could feel them, all standing behind you, and Davey’s eyes went a little panicky again. He went to duck his head, pushing the conversation aside to let your friends in, but you scowled.

“No, we are having this talk,” you said with a frown. He looked up, a little alarmed. “Have you not listened to a single word that I have said in the past year and a half?” He stammered out something incomprehensible, but you cut him off. 

“I haven’t just been wearing my heart on my sleeve; I have thrown it into your stupid face and you thought, what? That I told you I loved you because you gave me a milkshake?”

“Well, I mean, you said thank-”

“And when I bled all over my shorts? Did you think I was just being polite? When have I ever done something to be polite? Did you think,” you asked in a low voice, “that I just made out with you at a party because I was drunk? If I was looking for some drunken hookup, I would have found Romeo.”

Behind you, Race let out a bark of laughter. A few of the other boys snickered, and Davey’s eyes sparkled a little.

“And when you said that you had ruined things, I said that I still love you. Is that really so hard to understand?” You took a step closer, simultaneously furious and terrified. “Let me make things completely, impossibly clear. I love you. It has always been you, Davey. I’ve told you that I love you, what, 4 times? 5? Every time, you brush it off. It’s on you that we haven’t dated.”

Things had gone silent around you. People were turning to look at the two of you, but you didn’t care. You were panting a little, hands trembling at chest heaving, while Davey stared at you.

“I love you too,” he said.

“I,” you began. “What?”

He took a hesitant step closer, evidently unsure what you wanted him to do. “I love you. I just wasn’t sure that you wanted to - that you were interested in me.”

Behind you, Jack gave a wolf whistle. A few of the boys clapped, and Davey blinked. He glanced over your shoulder, apparently thinking that the spell was broken, but you grabbed him by the tassles on his gown and dragged his mouth down to yours.

His hands flailed to the side for a second, but he carefully settled them against your waist. You had graduated, and next you had the summer. You weren’t going to lose this, you promised him silently. This wasn’t how it would end. 

He didn’t need to tell you that he had loved you the entire time. He didn’t need to explain that he had bought you a milkshake because it was all he had to give. He didn’t have to explain that he cancelled the independent study so he could be in the gym class with you, though he really had been excited for the independent study and he really hated gym class. He didn’t have to say that kissing you meant something, because you already knew.

When Autumn came, you weren’t scared to lose everybody. You loved them. You loved him. That would be enough.


End file.
